Hot Springs, small towns and pygmy elephants

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Riki decided that we would stay in a place called strawberry hotel near the Kinabalu National Park , so we headed to the long distance bus station where we encountered our first experience of aggressive touts, everyone yelling and screaming where you go? Trying to take our bags and who knows what else as even if we wanted to use their services it was so chaotic that it was impossible. We finally made our way to the counter and got our tickets, we told the bus driver to drop us at Kundesang a town nearby the hotel, to our surprise the bus drove past our hotel and continued down the road for a while before it dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, we decided to head to a closer hotel which turned to be much further away from the road then we expected. So we set off bags on backs about fifteen minutes down a dirt road, we asked a local guy whereabouts this place was, he was very kind and offered us a lift, with no hesitation we jumped in and were driven another fifteen mins to the hotel. Upon check in we asked prices for basic room but as it seemed this was an exclusive resort so it was wayyyy out of our price range. The friendly local had driven off and when we asked for a taxi they gave us the look that now we’ve come to love to hate, no taxis around here. So we set off again back down, I say down but I really mean up a hill that never ended. The blistering sun pouring down on us and the local children stunned to see two round eyes walking down the road with giant backpacks, Liam stopped for some pics and they were very keen to practice there limited English skills. Eventually we hit a bus stop in the middle of nowheres-ville, there were some mini buses around and after some hard negotiating we were on our way to Pouring Hot Springs.

We arrived in Poring just as the National Park was closing and all of the tourists were leaving to nicer abodes. We checked into a tiny hostel with the smallest room and smallest bathroom to date with millions of ants in the bed so we decided now was the perfect time to use our sleep sheets.

Morning breaks and we enjoyed French toast and a hard boiled egg at the only restaurant in town, which later would save our lives, but you’ll have to wait for that story well actually its pretty much right now. We paid entry to the park and visited the springs with a waterslide which we had to pay entry for as well , next we went to the jungle canopy walkway and paid another entry fee as well as a camera fee (this was going to be more expensive then expected) this Liam thoroughly enjoyed with his love of dodgy looking rope constructions and heights finally combined. After that lovely experience we headed to a small waterfall for a quick dip, and then a backpackers miracle struck (we were completely broke and no atm until we arrived at the next town 45 mins drive away) as we found a fifty rm note, floating around at the bottom of the falls. Now in more positive spirits Liam noticed a sign that read “waterfall 3500 meters” we thought surely it would be a walk in the park. How wrong we were, after hiking and climbing for about 2 and half hours on a path that consisted of large rocks and hills that had to be climbed up holding onto branches sticking out of the dirt for what seemed like forever we reached a waterfall not much bigger than the last but we were hot and very thirsty (as we only had half a small bottle of water with us) we went for a swim. The water was beautiful, then we looked up and saw the real waterfall…it was massive!

Finally a few hrs later we were back on solid ground and ventured to the hot springs for a soak, we found some individual tubs but it would have taken 6hrs to fill so after a very shallow soak, we wrangled a taxi and headed for Ranau where we were told to spend the night and head to the tourism office in the morning to sort out bus tickets to Sandakan.
We checked into our decrepit hotel (our hotel standards are progressively getting worse) and slept surprisingly well.

Morning came and we lugged our gear down to the tourism office only to find out the one and only day of the year that they were closed was this one, and according to everyone in town it was the only way to arrange a bus outta this place. Super we thought and the sun was starting to get really hot. We had a business card of one Stephen Lee after a brief call (mainly cause we ran out of credit on the pay-phone) a local guy said we could hail a bus down near the old church. We wondered for about 30 mins out of town to where were told was the general direction of said old church. Turns out the thumbs out technique of hitching doesn’t fly over here as all assumed the round eyes were either waving hello or just handing out thumbs up to all passers by. By some act of god a bus not only showed up but actually stopped, after being out the blistering sun we were relieved to be on a bus with air-con and iron man 2 playing on a tiny screen. We met a character who turned out be not only filming a show for national geographic but also trying to break a world record of going overland to every country without flying he had been traveling for almost a year with 16-17 countries to go.

After a four hour bus ride we arrived in Sandakan and checked into our new abode, about three streets from the beach front (and I use the term loosely) aka the Legenda Hotel which was mui dope(cheap and excellent).

Sandakan didn’t have much going on especially for the second largest city in Borneo, we did discover a beautiful roof top bar on top of the Nak Hotel and after much discussion we agreed to go to Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary the next day. The next day we ventured down to the bus station, hopped on the local bus and arrived in time for afternoon feeding it was very cool to see more orangutans but we were so impressed with Rasa Ria Orangutan Orphanage that we were a little disappointed. After speaking to a few travelers and hearing grand stories of pygmy elephants and strong Malaysian whiskey we decided to head to Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Safari. We gave Uncle Tan a call the next morning and we were soon off to find there location. Before long we were on numerous wildlife spotting boat trips down the kinbaton river, a back to basics shack in the jungle where Riki got absolutely bitten alive and lots of wonderful food and company but sad to say not much wildlife. Turns out those grand stories of copious wildlife and pygmy elephants were with other companies but shit happens.

We and a couple of other travelers headed to Semporna where we would soon be diving Sipadan one of the top dive sites in the world, if we can get permits.

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